


Dear Fellow Traveler

by takatakataka



Series: Dear Fellow Travelers [2]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4, Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Addiction, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, F/F, Gen, Gun Violence, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Major Character Injury, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Platonic Relationships, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Trauma, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:22:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26015707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takatakataka/pseuds/takatakataka
Summary: A legend of the west entangles herself in the life of a soon to be legend of the east, but neither is quite as unshakeable as their status makes them seem.---Essentially a series of stories about a House aligned tribal!couriers time on the east coast and encounters with a female sole survivor starting at Concord. Uploaded as chapters and in sequential order with connecting threads between stories but can be read independently.
Relationships: Female Courier & Female Sole Survivor, Female Courier/Veronica Santangelo
Series: Dear Fellow Travelers [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2100759
Kudos: 7





	Dear Fellow Traveler

ᛐᛤᛚ

She stared down from her perch, unnoticed atop the building at the intersection right in front of the ruins of the Museum of Freedom. The wreckage of a vertibird jutted out of the side of the museum-like a lopsided feather in a cap - and it was overlooking a cluster of Raiders in the street below. They moved erratically, lacking any sort of coordination. 

_Making the Vipers look mighty professional,_ she thought. 

A loud beam of light came streaking down from the museum, missing it's scattered targets in the street and careening up toward the perched voyeur. It was impressive how far off the mark the beam was, really, forcing her back into cover behind the long-dead AC unit to her right. Their unseen onlooker dusted off her rags, patting the scaled metal that served as armor, and followed the scorch mark back up to its source with a sweep of her gaze. A man in a ridiculous outfit and snazzy hat wielding a wildly impractical hand crank laser rifle stood nestled in the neglected balcony in the center of the museum’s front facade. As far as she could tell the gun only had a single post haphazardly tack-welded to the front-most beam focuser to aim with, so she supposed she couldn’t blame him for his inaccuracy. Did make her wonder why he’d bother with that travesty of a weapon, though.

She turned her attention back to the gang, _no_ , gaggle of raiders in the street. Once the dust had settled they took to screaming colorful insults at the sniper and firing their makeshift weapons. The shots were too quiet, she noted, and though she couldn’t be certain of the cartridge from up here she knew that whatever it was should be a lot louder than the sad little pops and bangs coming from below. She leaned a little closer to watch them fire, being careful to not expose herself. Her attention narrowed down onto a man crouched behind a truck, his face obscured by a gas mask that she had no faith could protect him from dust, let alone a chemical agent. He stepped out, aimed the mass of rust masquerading as a gun in his hand for a painfully long time. Just as his finger had begun to squeeze down on the trigger he was vaporized by one stray laser bolt for his trouble.

_Must’ve put a couple of extra cranks behind that one,_ she chuckled.

She turned her attention to the woman that the man in the snazzy hat had missed earlier. She was firing blindly from the cover of her sandbag sanctuary, quickly expending her pitiful little magazine in a handful of shots. This really didn’t have to keep going like this. If they just _communicated_ with one another; all It’d take is two of them focusing fire on the sniper while the rest rushed the door to end this train wreck of a gunfight. But alas, no one could think of anything but what was right in front of their noses. 

The observer shook her head briefly, noting that just as much gas was escaping out the chamber of the little pipe guns as was going out the muzzle with the bullets. The chamber was opening too quickly after firing and letting a good deal of pressure escape out the wrong end, robbing the gun of muzzle velocity and making for a quieter shot. It also meant that the bullets wouldn’t be too terribly effective once they hit their target either, not to mention what it had to be doing to the already terrible accuracy of a gun made entirely from rusted out pipe and plywood.

_So that’s why they sound like cap guns._ She mused dryly, her rifle cradled comfortably in the nooks of her arms.

Her mind wandered down a trail of engineering. Trying to decipher just how none of these guns had exploded in their hands yet, how none of the haphazard magazines had jammed. It was almost impressive, the fight was seemingly only able to continue by blind luck. She imagined the kick some of the guys back at the Gun Runners would get out of dissecting everything wrong with these things. It brought a smile to her face. She’d have to snag one once they were done with their little show.

She was broken from her musing by a gunshot, significantly louder than the other ones. 

“Christ, there’s another one!?” One of the raiders yelled. She followed the jab of the brute's meaty finger down the street. A woman, her crimson hair pulled back in a ponytail too nicely styled for this side of the country, wearing a near spotless bright blue skin-tight vault suit, fired a pistol while hurrying to the cover of the truck. The pistol was one of those obscenely large 10mms that were so bizarrely common. She flinched with each shot and her aim suffered for it, a clear sign that she wasn't familiar with its usage. 

Half the pack of raiders turned to move on her and suddenly the observer was confronted with a difficult choice.

_Didn’t come out here to get involved in local squabbles._ She reminded herself. _We’re here for House first, observe second. Helping shouldn’t even be on the list._ She chewed at her already split and raw lower lip as she continued trying to talk herself out of it. The red-headed vaulter barely managed to avoid a bullet to the shoulder and she thought she felt a pang of something familiar in her heart. 

The sights of her faithful Brush Gun were aligned before she could fully register what she was doing. The first shot went into a raider girl’s head. The semi-wadcutter bullet causing it to explode in a dazzlingly disgusting display of viscera and brain matter. A moment later, the thunderous sound of the hat man's laser rifle drowned out the cry of a raider as he took a bolt straight through his chest, sending his partner scrambling for cover in the store beneath the observer.

“Oh fuck this, I’m outta here!” The big brute cried, bolting over his cover and across the street. A flick of the hand, a lever thrown, an empty case kicked from its chamber and the Brush Gun was ready again. The front sight rested naturally on his back, she fired, sending him crumpling into a heap on the asphalt. He was still alive, but she’d seen enough blood spatter to know he wouldn’t be going anywhere. 

The woman with crimson hair, emboldened by the newfound aid, rushed out from behind her cover. Her shots were still wild and barely aimed but they managed to wound one of her assailants this time. That was progress, at least. 

“Gods protect this woman,” The observer murmured to herself, running the action of her weapon again to put a round through the neck of the man she’d wounded. “Because I will not always be there to do so.” Another throw of the lever, another case ejected, another round closed in the chamber. She lined up the sights on the last raider as he charged the woman with crimson hair, began to squeeze the trigger as she tracked his movement. The wall of the trigger met her, going stiff and heavy, just a little farther-

The door beside her busted open, breaking her concentration. A man, dirty with frenzied eyes, stared down at her with a world-weary machete in his hand. 

_Ah_.

He screamed and tackled her before she could turn the rifle on him. She let the gun drop with a clatter and struggled to keep his weapon at bay. His free hand slammed her in the face sending a torrent of stars to stream across her vision as her head cracked against the ground. 

The world spun around her, sound came in all at once in an indecipherable wave, gunfire, screaming, grunting. The first thing she saw was the machete that was now much closer to her neck as her strength failed her. The sight rallied her, adrenaline-rushed, her muscles tensed, and her strength halted the blade mere inches from her throat. She maneuvered her right leg out from between his and delivered a strong kick to his stomach, forcing him off her. She scrambled to her feet, her hand going for the pistol at her side.

The observer had not cleared leather before a laser beam soundly ripped through the head of her attacker. She turned around to its source. The sniper dipped his fancy hat to her from his spot on the balcony before turning his attention back down the street. She followed his gaze. 

The crimson-haired woman, the vault dweller, stood over the body of the man who’d been charging her. The pistol in her hands was pointed at the mass of red paste that used to be his head, the locked back slide a symptom of the cause. Her whole body shuddered with her ragged breaths. 

“Shit.” The observer huffed to herself as she stared at the gory mass. “First kill’s never easy, but...shit.” 

“I’ve got a group of settlers inside, the raiders are almost through the door! Help us, please!” The sniper's voice broke her from her pity. She gave him a nod, grabbed her rifle, and went through the door. 

“Hail to thee Day, hail, ye Day’s sons;” She began the old prayer as she took the steps two at a time. _We could just leave now._ “hail Night and daughter of Night,” She continued, ignoring the baritone whisper in her thoughts as she rounded the landing of the staircase. _We owe these people nothing._ “With blithe eyes look on both of us,” Her words were forceful, willfully drowning out the voice vying for her attention. She entered the storefront and headed for the doorway. _House certainly wouldn’t waste time on these people._ “-And grant to those sitting here victory!” Her proclamation finished in a near roar, cutting off the alien whispers. The silence that remained rang in her own ears. She stared up towards the sun through the familiar lenses of her aviators and stood in the quiet for a moment, centering herself. The voice had fully receded, for now. 

A small, attention-getting cough brought her back. She snapped her head to the source, the vault woman was staring at her. 

“Ah, right,” was all she could manage in reply. 

“Who...who are you?” The Vaulter asked her unwitting benefactor in a sweet, lovely tone. She was wary of the strange woman before her and rightfully so, by the looks of her she had probably never been outside the vault until today. Her hair was somehow even more immaculate up close, she was clearly wearing actual makeup, and her soft figure showed no sign of hardship or labor. Not so much as a chip in her pretty manicured nails.

Something about her snapped the Observer back to reality. As if to indicate this fact she brought her rifle into her shoulder and held it at a low ready, muzzle towards the earth.

“We can exchange life stories after this is all over. C’mon.” The Observer jerked her head towards the front door of the museum. “Or you could leave, certainly no reason you need to come.” She adds before stalking off towards the large building.

Somehow, she isn’t surprised when she hears the woman's boots on the pavement stomping after her.

-~-

The Red-Haired Vault Dweller stayed tucked behind the heavily armed stranger as they made their way through the museum, keeping out of the way of the ruthlessly efficient woman as much as possible. They took the building one room at a time, still moving swiftly to maintain the element of surprise. The Observer was very good at putting the wild-eyed men and women down before they could react, never giving them a chance to try and work together against her. It had really been very impressive in a disturbing sort of way.

Honestly, the Observer wasn’t at all what she had expected when she envisioned a post-apocalyptic hero. Instead of some tall grunting leather-clad bearded badass, she was a woman of small frame and even smaller stature standing at least half a head shorter than herself. She was clothed in what looked like hooded rags with strategically placed scales of metal along her upper arms with a too-long tattered and sleeveless duster over top. Even her hair was unusual. A dull black, almost violet, chin length bob with the left side done up in a series of tight braids tucked behind her ear while the right was left to hang freely.

It was as she was attempting to discern the symbol on the back of the woman’s duster that was mostly concealed by her duffle bag that they drew upon the door the trapped settlers were hiding behind. It opened to reveal the exhausted man with the nice hat, he ushered the girls inside quickly, closing the door behind them as he spoke. “I don’t know who you are but your timing’s impeccable. Preston Garvey, Commonwealth Minutemen.” He extended his hand to the woman in tattered rags first, his eyes trailing over her shoulder to the giant duffle bag on her back and the mini arsenal strapped to her like a one-man-band.

“Doc Riley, at your pleasure.” She took it, giving a quick but firm shake, before casting a sidelong glance to the other girl in the vault suit with (mostly still perfect) crimson hair. 

“Oh! Uh-” The redhead hesitated. These were the first people she’d be interacting with in this new world and she had no idea how forward she should be. “Sorry. I’m still just a bit frazzled." She stuck out her hand, offering it to Preston with a bright beaming smile. "I’m Nika.” 

Preston gave the pristine little hand attached to the smiling face a firm squeeze. “Glad to have you then. We’re in a difficult situation here, but if you could help us out, maybe we could help you too?” He offered, eyeing the better-armed of the two girls pointedly. Nika bristled to herself. 

Riley, or maybe Doc would be better, rested her lever-action rifle against her shoulder and took in the room. Nika followed her gaze. There were four of them total counting Preston. An elderly woman dressed like a fortune-teller sat on a bench by the window, based on her bemused expression and mild swaying Nika assumed she probably wasn’t fully aware of what was happening around her. Sitting on the floor beside her was a haggard young man rocking back and forth, his knees tucked into his chest, likely in the midst of an ongoing mental breakdown. A woman in flannel with a face twisted by impotent rage paced back and forth endlessly beside them. 

Doc Riley let out an exaggerated sigh.“Not really much you could do for me as far as I can tell. I’ve had more caps than I’ll ever be able to spend for years now. My gun collection’s not exactly lacking in variety, and I’ve got more ammo than sense. Hell, I ain’t even been hungry in as long as I can remember.” She drawled, glancing over the pitiful group of settlers. Preston’s face twisted into a scowl. “But,” She added, looking over to Nika, “If you help her with whatever she obviously needs, I’ll consider that fair payment.”

Preston visibly relaxed, relief flooding him at the first bit of good news in weeks. “Thank you!" He turned his attention to a man in a pair of overalls that Nika had failed to notice before that was quietly working at the terminal beside them. "Sturges, tell her.” 

Sturges, she assumed, turned around and leaned against the desk, revealing his ridiculous pompadour. “There’s a crashed Vertibird on the roof, pre-war, you might of seen it on your way in.” He started, leaning in towards them as he spoke. “Well, its passengers left behind a seriously sweet goody. We’re talking a full suit of cherry T-45 power armor. Military Issue.” A grin had come over him at the thought of it. Based on his look and the outfit she guessed he'd probably try tinkering with it.

Nika whistled, she remembered seeing a suit up close when she still lived on base with Nate before the war, before he was deployed to Alaska. He’d been so proud when he got “PA certified,” he was eager to show her how the armor worked whenever he got the chance. Most of it had gone over her head but she was always just glad to see him excited about something, he was always so stressed back then. 

Suddenly she found herself struggling to choke back a sob at the memory. She hoped they didn't notice.

Riley, let out an unimpressed hum. Her expression was skeptical, but they couldn’t tell she was keeping her comments till the end of the presentation like a good student. The air grew stagnant with the quiet. They apparently expected a response of some kind. “And?”

Sturges faltered. “W-well, if someone were to hop in it they could rip the minigun off the vertibird and give those Raiders an express ticket to hell!” 

“Who?” Riley asked bluntly. The group stared at her, uncertain of what she meant. 

But Nika had a decent idea of where the doctor was going. “Who’s gonna pilot the suit?” Her sweet voice answered where Riley's failed to clarify.

“I guess I could?” Preston answered. “All we’ve really needed was an extra body who knew how to handle themselves in a fight to pilot the suit. I was going to provide fire from the balcony to take some pressure off whoever was in the armor, but you showed out there you’re a better shot.” He was still ignoring her, only acknowledging Riley. Nika managed to hold her tongue, _No sense in pissing them off._

A grimace crossed the doctor's face, the kind that said there were a lot of things wrong with that statement, but she decided to just approach the most obvious one. “You got any idea how to pilot a suit of power armor? Even know how to get in one?”

“Everyone does!” The angry-looking woman in flannel interjected from the other side of the room. Nika decided she was the kind of woman who hadn’t been happy a day in her life, always on the lookout for something else to be mad about. “You twist the…" She gesticulated wildly, " _thing_ on the back, and it opens right up! Then you just climb in and you’re good.” She said it matter of fact, as if she did it all the time.

Doc Riley stared at her a moment, her expression screaming contempt. “Do you know what happens to someone who doesn’t know how to use power armor tries to swing their arms?" She looked around the room, her eyes searching her audience for any comprehension. "At best, a dislocated shoulder. At worst?" She gave it a dramatic pause, waiting to be sure she had their attention. "They put too much force behind it because they don’t know what they’re doing and the hydraulics overextend too fast and rip their arms out of their sockets.” The gathered group stared at her in silence. Slowly she saw the realization dim the hunger in their eyes. Leaning her rifle against the wall behind her and slipping the bag on her back off, she discarded all her equipment but the clothes on her back and the pistol at her hip. “Lucky for you, I have training.”

There was a sigh of relief from everyone in the room but the neglected vault dweller. She’d seen where this was going, though she had to wonder where she’d gotten the training. She looked to the Doc anxiously, uncertain of what to do with herself. The shorter woman looked to her a moment. Something in her face, her eyes, said she recognized something In the vaulter. Nodding to herself, Doc reached down and unzipped the duffle bag. Reaching inside, she retrieved another lever-action rifle, smaller than the first and split in two. With practiced movements and careful hands, she had the rifle reassembled in a few moments. She looked up to Nika from her work as she grabbed a handful of rounds from her bag. 

“Watch what I do.” Nika crouched down to get a better look. Everyone was watching them now. Going slow to make sure she understood, Doc slipped in round after round into a little gate on the side of the rifle. There were 11 rounds loaded by the time she was done. She gave a quick jerk on the lever before closing it home again. “Set up on the door downstairs, use the walls for cover, don’t join in until you hear that laser. The action likes to stick up if you’re not mindful, just give it a good swift swing between each shot and she’ll serve you right, tell me you understand.”

Nika nodded. “I understand,” She gave a sheepish smile and a laugh. “I’ll try my best.” _God that was lame._

“Don’t try,” Doc answered, handing her a satchel of bullets for the rifle. “Do.” and with that, she walked out the door, leaving the players to take their places.

ᛐᛤᛚ 

_Did I really say that? Gods that was corny._ Riley chastised herself as she slipped through the door leading out to the Vertibird wreckage. Stepping out into the remains of what was likely once an office before a military aircraft decided to hang up its hat through the wall, she was confronted with that she was most dreading.

The armor was colored a disgusting shade of puke orange that had no business anywhere near steel, its original finish peeking through the rust in a few choice spots that had been miraculously shielded from the elements. Stepping around the front of it, the thick glass of the visor was completely caked with dust and grime. She stood on her toes to reach one of the lenses and wiped a finger across it. She was rewarded for her trouble with a thick mass of grossness clinging to her finger.

“You know,” She said to herself. “We don’t have to use the shambling mass of rust and probably broken minigun.” Her words hung in the air, growing stagnant in the absence of a reply she wasn’t expecting. “It’s not even like this is the good armor!” She added desperately. “This is the rear line, first draft bullshit that couldn’t even win the war!”

As if to counter herself, her hand grabbed the black polymer grip of the pistol at her hip and slipped it out of her holster. _You wanna take on that pack with this?_ The voice she hated asked, a husky baritone that left a pang in her chest every time she heard it. It was being oddly pragmatic for once. 

“I could do it. I cleared out Vault 3 with it just because I could. I didn’t even use my special hand loads back then.” Her thumb pressed down on a small lever behind the trigger, dropping the magazine into her waiting hand. She pressed down on the loaded stack of jacketed hollow points experimentally, they were stiff but gave and lowered slightly under the pressure. 12 rounds, one short of a full load, the 13th was waiting patiently in the chamber. 

The voice didn’t reply, It never did. 

“Hell, the fiends were worse than these guys! They actually had real guns! And there were loads more of them! Not to mention the steady supply of drugs to dope themselves up on.” She was stalling. Arguing with imaginary voices that wouldn’t reply even if they could. She knew that. The magazine slid back into the grip quietly, only making a sound once the mag catch clicked and held it in place. With a sigh, she slipped the gun back into its holster and looked at the armor, locking her eyes on the empty abysses of glass in the helmet. 

A thunderous sound screamed from the front of the building, Preston’s idiotic rifle. There was a long pause before another too loud shot was fired, Riley wondered absently what the best case RPM was on that thing. Moments later, the less loud but no less distinctive sound of a .357 lever-action repeater joined him, the delay between shots reeking of someone who’d never handled it before.

_"The show’s starting, poor form to get on stage too long after your cue."_ A different, far posher, voice than usual. _That_ _fucking tuxedoed ghoul_ from the Sierra Madre, whispered into her ear. Ghosts from the past taunting her. 

“Gods, fuck, fine, If it gets you fuckers off my ass.” Riley huffed as she stepped back around to the rear of the armor. Her hand grabbed the turn wheel and twisted hard, a thick layer of sickly orange powder clung to her leather glove as she took it away. The whole back of the suit opened wide with a shriek of rending metal. She forced her misgivings out of mind as she hopped into it. With another squeal of pain, the armor sealed up around her and the world went silent. 

The steel giant came to life slowly, she swallowed hard as the familiar feeling of being trapped swirled in her gut. The heads up display sputtered awake after multiple blinks and false starts. None of the readouts were good; hull integrity was thoroughly compromised, the built-in compass was stuck facing south, and the reactors’ power readings were dancing a scary jig all across the chart. On the positive, the hydraulics were operating at half efficiency, so if something went wrong with the suit’s motor functions it wouldn’t make her an amputee at least.

When the suit’s external microphones finally reactivated (the one on the left side did anyway) the first sound she heard was the rifle she’d loaned out. It’s fire rate at least double what it had been. Nika was getting it. Something about that spurred her on. Maybe it was that the girl was actually pulling her weight. Maybe it was that the vaulter’s desire to help was real and not just the put on performance of a pampered pre-war relic. Either way, Riley grit her teeth against her own hesitation and got to work.

Riley rushed forward, grabbing the minigun by its two handholds and wrenching it from its pintle without stopping. Craters marked her path along the roof with each heavy stomp, a trail of dents being left in her wake as she rushed for the roof’s edge. Without ceremony she was off, freefalling three stories to the street below. Asphalt cratered under her, the ancient road fracturing and flying up around her in a halo of pre-war infrastructure. There was a lull in the gunfire on both sides, neither quite expecting a display like that. She was grateful for that. Honestly, she wasn’t sure how long this armor would hold against direct fire so let them gawk all they want.

As if to further spoil her with time, the largest of the raiders stepped out to size her up. She wouldn’t be surprised if he turned out to be the boss of this little gaggle. They seemed like the types to subscribe to the Biggestest and Strongestest school of leadership. 

“Why don’t you come over here, show me that fancy gun up close!” He certainly had the unearned overconfidence of a small-time raider boss. “Not a lotta people can get past my boys, I’ll give you that!” So he was the boss. _Excellent_. 

Now she knew for sure who to shoot first. 

The barrels of the minigun spun up with a loud whirr, louder than it should be, recognition of what was happening coming over the raider too late. A torrent of lead screeched out of its muzzles in a deafening _brrrrrrrrrrrrt._ Within seconds his upper body was reduced to a sickening red mush. She let off the trigger, the gun going quiet as the barrels slowed to a stop.

Right around the time his body crumpled into the dirt, all hell broke loose. Contrary to Riley’s expectations, the pack didn’t cut and run the moment their brave leader died and instead opened fire on her. Whether this was out of vengeful loyalty to him or bluntly stupid bloodlust, she would never know, and frankly, she didn’t really care. Tiny tremors shook through the ground as she stomped towards the base of the building.

Preston and Nika were firing again. There were at least eight attackers, more coming from around the corner if she read her gut right. Hard to pick out individual shots from within the din of it all but there were definitely some much louder ones mixed in with the pitiful little pops of the pipe guns, made even sadder by the barely functional tinny little microphone. So they had a few real guns mixed in there, which could be problematic if they knew how to use them.

A bullet, she had no idea of the source, panged off the side of her helmet. The loud metallic echo of it reverberated through her body and into her soul. The armor made a panicked beep that she had no way of knowing whether it was just a defective system overreacting or a genuine cause for concern. That trapped feeling bubbled up out of her gut and into her throat. She tried to swallow it back down, tried to keep it under control. It held in her throat, but it was boiling, angry, and hungry to escape her. 

“Don’t lock up don’t lock up don’t lock up don-” Riley repeated to herself over and over again as she forced herself to move. The heavy boots clunking into the pavement as she sidestepped from her cover and out into the middle of the street, barrels spinning up. Another deafening torrent of sound and fire screamed out of the six spinning barrels, showering the street in lead. It was impossible to aim it; no sights, extreme weight, and a total lack of ergonomics made that a fool’s errand. That wasn’t the point though. The sheer volume of fire was enough to probably hit someone on principle alone, and failing that, it was a damn good way of forcing their heads down. Now standing in the center of the street, she let off the trigger again but kept the barrels spinning. She turned back to look at her allies.

“Shoot who I don’t!” She called out, bullets still whizzing around and glancing off of her suit.

Nika flipped back into cover behind the wall beside her, reaching into the bag to grab a handful of rounds and load them. She turned her own head to call out to her power-armored acquaintance. “What? What do you mean?”

“You’ll figure it out!” Riley called out over the gunfire. She turned back to face the raiders and forced herself to advance. One step forward at a time while pivoting her upper body towards two men behind a sandbag barricade. She let loose another wail of gunfire, eviscerating their cover before drenching them in bullets. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a man behind an old shipping trailer expose himself to draw a bead on her. Before he could fire, a bullet pierced his lower jaw and exited the top of his head. His lifeless body stumbled to the side before falling into the dirt.

_Oh thank fuck she actually undestood,_ she thought to herself as she turned to another group behind a truck, hoping to goad some of the people in the ruined house to try and take her. 

It was at this moment, two things went very wrong with her plan.

Thing one was the 10 extra raiders who decided to come running up the side streets to join the fray. One of whom, based purely on the report when it fired, had some flavor of .308 caliber rifle. This stood out to Riley because immediately after they fired their .308 caliber rifle, the bullet struck her left shoulder pauldron. The armor’s systems screamed in panic over a hull breach. Meanwhile, the rusted out metal of the pauldron screeched as it was violently sheared in half.

The sheer terror of being trapped that had been desperately scraping at the walls of her throat forced its way up, clawing its way into her mouth, and wrenching her jaws open. The black mass of anxiety and fear, claustrophobia at its most visceral, came scrambling out and over her. Consuming her and devouring her courage and will all at once. The gun died in her hands as she became paralyzed. The beast had become prey.

Thing two was when the sudden arrival of the 10 extra raiders apparently drew the attention of a pissed off Deathclaw that had been somewhere in the sewers. It burst forth from a massive sewer grate, exploding onto the street with a thunderous roar. A few of the raiders, the smart ones, or the ones that just weren’t blitzed out of their minds on Psycho, turned and ran. The rest decided the Deathclaw was the bigger threat than the walking suit of rust that was having a panic attack and turned to shoot at that instead. 

The first to die were the ones immediately next to the grate, some of whom didn’t even get a chance to register what was happening, being shredded by a single swipe of a hand of 10-inch razor-sharp claws. The second group to die were the really dumb ones, the one who in their galaxy brained wisdom decided the best plan was to charge the 10-foot tall lizard monster with palms the size of their torsos. They were killed in a storm of claws and teeth and a choice few even got the horns. The third group was the few survivors who only now tried to turn and run, not realizing that nothing can outrun a Deathclaw.

While all this was happening, Riley was still frozen. The gun, once so angry and devastating, hung uselessly in the steel hands of the armor. “I’m gonna fucking die here.” She muttered, the black mass digging into her even tighter. Her eyes were transfixed on the beast as it chased one of the fleeing raiders down a side street, watched it leap on him and rend him in half with just its mouth. “I’m gonna fucking die alone, on the wrong side of the country in a stupid piece of shit person-shaped coffin and no one is gonna know and I’m never gonna get to say-”

“Riley!” A woman’s voice called out to her, it was pretty, too pretty for a waster. A gap in the black mass appeared for just a moment, just long enough for her to register that the beast was charging her. Just long enough for her to notice the thunderous red laser bolt strike it in the shoulder that it shrugged off. 

Doc Riley slipped her arm out of the arm assembly and grabbed a faded yellow pull tab. She ripped it back just as the Deathclaw came into swinging distance. Air rushed over her as the back of the armor opened up even more violently than before, a gust of compressed air from a tank inside the armor fired directly into her gut and shot her out. The black mass tore away from her, still clinging to its metal grave as the beast’s claws rent the front armor of the suit.

She landed on her feet, skidding back aways. The pistol practically leaped from her holster and into her waiting hand. Lingering panic was quickly being overridden by instinct and experience. She’d left her brush gun in the museum along with her assault rifle, so her heavy hitters were out of the question. A flare gun would be ideal, they were consistently good at scaring off the beasts no matter how enraged. Something about the bright light overwhelming their sensitive vision, had gone a long way to keeping her alive in the Divide. But, of course, she’d left that back at the Lucky 38 which was on the opposite end of the country. Grenades? Also in the museum and she wasn’t sure her frags would be high yield enough anyway. All that really left her with was-

“May the Valkyries welcome me.” Doing the exact opposite of what her instincts told her, Riley sprinted towards the giant murder lizard. The beast swung and she hit the dirt just as she saw the movement of limb and claw. Falling to her side, she skidded across broken asphalt and jagged rocks, collecting cuts and scrapes along the way. She slipped between its legs and out behind it. Before it could turn and disembowel her, she scrambled to her feet and grabbed for the hard pointy spines along its back. This pissed it off even more, letting out another earth-shaking roar as it swung it’s whole body around to try and catch her. Miraculously she managed to hold on, using the momentum created by its movement, she brought her whole body up onto it’s back and out of the reach of its claws. 

Flexibility was the one thing Deathclaws didn’t have. It somehow managed to find even more rage within itself to get even more pissed off. She wondered if maybe it was Deathclaw mating season. _That’s usually in fall, right? It is October..._ If she was right then maybe this strapping young lad was just frustrated, needed to get some of the energy out, he was an awful long way from his pack. Such thoughts were forced out of her head as a pair of claws came way too close for comfort, whiffing barely a foot away from her head. She scrambled up its back again, getting up to the shoulders when the injury that set her on this path six years ago decided to rear its ugly head.

An errant signal, sent from the part of her brain that controlled fine motor control that had also been damaged by one of the bullets that robbed her of her history, made her into Doc Riley, caused a muscle spasm in her left hand. Her grip relaxed just as she was clambering towards the neck, with her other hand preoccupied holding the gun, she had no way to stop her tumble over the beast’s shoulder. She rolled into the fall, managing to hit the ground running. The beast’s claws ripped a jagged gash across the bottom half of her duster before slamming uselessly into the road. She bolted for the ruins of the house so many of the raiders from earlier had decided to use for cover, murder lizard in hot pursuit. It slammed into the front of the house with a cacophony of splintering timber and buckling structural integrity.

“Great,” she panted, gulping down air. “If you don’t get me then 200 years of rotting wood will.” She joked between breaths. Deathclaw wasn’t amused. With its giant head awkwardly crammed through the doorway it looked sorta funny, even with its obvious murderous intent. It huffed at her before pulling itself back out of the entrance. 

It suddenly occurred to Riley that this was the first Deathclaw she’d seen in at least four years. Not since House gave the Vegas Militia carte blanche to just wipe out the Mojave Deathclaw population. That reminded her, she still needed to look into a way to reverse that, Nightstalker, Cazador, and even the Coyote populations had exploded in their absence. “Told him that would happen, said they weren’t- Shit!”

As if to break her from her thoughts the Deathclaw had shoved its entire arm through the door frame and was now swiping around desperately. She dived out of the way and into the corner by the stairs, well out of its reach. It was funny, from this angle it looked kind of like a cat shoving its arm in a dollhouse to try and get at something inside. Shame no one else back home would understand what she meant if she ever mentioned it to them. 

A gunshot rang out, .357, and the arm stilled a moment. It held like that for a few breaths before ripping it back out. There was another very loud roar followed by the rapid slamming of a very pissed off Deathclaw going down on all fours and scrambling after a fresh target. Riley booked it for the door. 

Claw was running for the museum at full tilt, Nika, not being a complete idiot, had already disappeared fully inside. _Was probably already running before the shot even landed._ Riley kept after him, moving as fast as she could. She managed to catch up just before it reached the intersection. With a wing and a prayer, she took a flying leap, slamming hard into its back and grabbing a spine about halfway up. It halted its momentum and spun again, trying to shake her off. Her grip held true and she managed to just barely hang on. 

Claw resorted to desperate slashing at it’s back again, each swipe coming up a hair too short. She set to work clambering up his back, faster this time, while trying to keep centered enough to stay out of reach of the massive claws. 

The trek to the head was arduous, stressful, and frankly probably took a good year off her life but the moment her hand wrapped around a curved horn she was in the home stretch. “Now for the dangerous part.” Wrapping her legs around its chest, or attempting too anyway with her height, she pulled herself up with her left arm till she was laying over his neck. There was only one chance and if this didn’t work then she was about to have her legs scraped off by a one-ton dinosaur wannabe. 

It was a simple plan really, executed in three parts. Step one: Shove gun into overgrown geckos eye. Step two: Pull the trigger. Step 3: Repeat step two and pray the Valkyries take her to Fólkvangr.

Screaming a prayer in a tongue no one but her understood, she fired her gun once, twice, three times, over and over again. Ignoring the Deathclaw’s screams. Ignoring the pain of the sharp spines stabbing into her stomach. Ignoring the self-preservation instinct screaming at her to just get out of there already. All she could focus on was the steady bangbangbangbang of her weapon until finally, it stopped. The sleek pistol of well-loved polymer and blued steel ran dry as the slide locked back. 

The world went deathly quiet. A twitch ran through the beast’s body, then a shudder, then, a quiet moan from deep in its throat. It toppled over, falling face-first into the road and lying still.

Riley held there for a too-long moment, her heart would probably be running a mile a minute if she still had the original one. Instead, she was just still, staring up into the midday sky, taking in as deep of breaths as she could with her scarred lungs. _Gods, they still hurt when I do that._

“Oh my god, you’re alive!” A red-headed voice called out to her. She followed it to its source. Nika was staring at her in disbelief. Guess she couldn’t blame her really, even she was shocked that she was still breathing. As she slid off the Deathclaw’s back she was hit with an intense bout of dizziness, all the weight seeming to just vanish from her head. She stumbled, staggered, and finally pitched forward only to be caught by the Vaulter. 

Bringing her right arm around her neck to support her, pistol still dangling from the hand, Nika flashed her a toothy grin. “Certainly didn’t think I’d see anything like that when I woke up today.” She joked. Riley let out a strangled laugh, her voice failing before it could even get out of her throat, little more than a sad gasp of air. She reached into the pocket of her duster with her free hand and flipped open a cardboard carton, revealing a half-empty pack of chalky red tablets. She slipped one out with her thumb before dropping the pack back into her pocket and popped the tablet into her mouth. 

“What were you expecting? Gotta wonder what someone’s thinking their first day out of a vault.” Riley asked, cracking the Mentat between her teeth with a loud snap. It’d help alleviate the headache at least, been too long since her last hit. 

Nika sighed through her nose. “Dunno. I guess not this.” Riley just nodded, couldn’t really do much with that. A silence fell between them as they limped towards the Museum. Halfway to the entrance, Nika slipped the empty pistol from her arm hangers hand before slipping it back into its holster. An audible gasp escaped her as she looked down and she immediately started rushing them inside. 

“What? What’s got you in a-” Riley glanced down to finally notice the blood running out of her stomach and down her legs. “Ah.” 

-~-

Metal rang out as lead met steel at superhuman speeds. Rusted steel fashioned into chest armor hung lazily off a wooden post stabbed through a crack in the road. There was a long pause as the armor came back to a standstill, then, a loud _CrackPang!_ The metal was thrown back against its support, falling forward to swing in protest as the momentum dissipated. Nika wracked the lever of the rifle again, readying another shot.

“Think you got the hang of it, darling.” A quiet husk of a voice called out to her from somewhere behind her in the darkness of the museum lobby. Nika jumped slightly at the sudden break in silence. “Now the real trick of it is just doing that at speed, but you aren’t gonna learn that from target practice.”

Nika let the rifles hammer down gently and turned to Riley, doing something she couldn’t quite understand with the wrecked suit of power armor. She walked over to her wanderer friend and offered the rifle back to her, but was met with a shake of the head. 

“Got one back at home, you’ve got more need for it than I do anyway,” Riley replied without looking. She leaned down to do something to one of the knees with a spanner, revealing the flag of Nikas former home emblazoned on her back. 

Something about seeing that flag again felt like a punch to the gut.

Nika awkwardly took it back into herself, staring at it for a moment before throwing it across her back and letting it hang from its sling. They stood there in awkward silence, only the sounds of a wrench echoing through an empty museum and the autumn winds to keep them company. “So,” She started, more to fill the quiet than anything. “You really trust this thing?” 

“Not for fighting, no,” Riley replied, standing with a grunt. “Armor plating itself is completely trashed and has no integrity, it’s a small wonder it could stand against a pipe gun. But that can be replaced. Frame itself is at least theoretically salvageable, but you’d need to go to the Brotherhood to get it fully trustworthy. I’ve done what I can to keep the hydraulics from giving out halfway to anywhere and the Reactor shouldn’t be an active danger anymore.” She replied before turning back to face Nika with a tired smile, the tight bandages over her stomach from where the Deathclaws back spines nearly gutted her visible under her open duster.

“So, why bother with it? Just, need to tinker or…?” Nika asked, trying to pretend she didn’t see the small bloodstain already appearing on the bandage.

“I admit I don’t get the chance to fuss over a machine like this much but no, I fixed it so I could show you how to use it!” Riley beamed, voice cracking again from the sudden change in tone. Nika stared back at her incredulously, eyes flitting back and forth between her and the armor. 

“I-I dunno-” She started. 

“Nonsense! It’s the least I can do for saving me from blood loss.” Riley chirped again, voice apparently recovering enough to allow for a higher (but still hollow) pitch.

“But, I thought that’s what showing me how to shoot was for? This just seems...excessive.” Nika tried to deflect. 

Riley was unfazed. “Knowing how to wield a gun is an essential skillset in this day and age, least it is ‘round this part of the country.” She muttered the last part under her breath. “This? This is real payment, and since the armor’s not fully operational you’re at no risk of real injury if something goes wrong. It’ll only take a few hours, I promise.” 

Nika stepped around the armor carefully, away from her teacher to be. She rolled the idea around her head experimentally as she examined it. A massive gash ran across the chest plate from where the Deathclaw had struck it, leaving a gaping hole where all the vital organs were. One of the Pauldrons was little more than a deformed mass of rust barely hanging on. Even after having been cleaned by Doc, the visor was still caked in visible grime. She had no confidence in this suit not being a death trap no matter how skilled a mechanic her current companion was. 

But when she looked at that woman’s eager smile something reassured her. 

With a heavy sigh, Nika looked to the floor before answering. “Alright, I suppose it can’t hurt.” Riley pumped her fist, mouthing something that she wasn’t confident was supposed to have been silent and gestured for her to follow her to the back and gestured to the large circular handle on the back. 

“The first step is the easiest, turn that and just let it open up for you.” Rileys’ demeanor returned to a more serious one, the same way she’d been when she explained to her the basics of using a rifle. It was somehow more comforting when she was being straight-laced. 

Nika obliged, the handle turned surprisingly easily with just one hand despite the metals audible protests. _Could have done without the squealing,_ she thought as she wiped her now oil slick hand off on her vault suit. Opening like a great big bear standing on its hind legs outstretching its arms for a hug, the back split in half and hung over her head like an awning along with the legs and arms. There was no horrible screeching like she’d heard from the roof earlier, so all that oil that Doc had used on it must have done some good at least. 

“So do I just...step inside?” Nika hesitated. 

“That’s right, just step on those little platforms for your feet and grab the handles at the end of the arms and the suit will take it from there.” Riley replied, giving her an assuring nod. 

A deep breath and a step forward. Right foot planted firmly on its platform. Then the left foot on its own. As she went to grasp the handles she felt herself suddenly start to rise. She let out a surprised yelp and almost leaped back out, but was met by a small calloused hand at her back.

“Ah, forgot about that, It’s adjusting itself to get your head positioned right, it’ll stop when your shoulders reach the suits.” Riley explained, keeping her hand at the small of her back until the suit finished its adjustment. “Now, grab for the handles.” She instructed, taking her hand out of the way and stepping back.

Nika obliged, grabbing them both at the same time. Immediately, the suit closed up around her and sealed her inside. Silence surrounded her again for a few moments, only able to stare straight ahead through grimy glass at a decaying wall. Her teacher stepped around the front and looked to her, waiting patiently. 

Lights on the little dashboard placed beneath her visor slowly flickered to life as the suit came back online with a dull hum. There was an audible crackling and popping sound as the suits left mounted microphone came back on, allowing her to hear again. Within dials she didn’t understand needles jumped around erratically, pointing in every possible direction before finally slowing to a stop at their (hopefully) correct places. 

“I have no idea what any of this stuff means.” Nika half laughed, her voice coming out through a tinny little speaker. 

Riley chuckled, nodding as she did. “Well, that’s what we’re here to learn. I’ll explain as we go but for now, let’s focus on learning to walk...”

The sun hung low in the sky by the time Riley declared her certified. Their lesson took about three hours if the clock in the upper corner of the suits heads up display was to be believed. They left the suit in the museum, it had served its purpose and neither had a means of repairing it fully. 

Doc sat on top of an old pickup trucks roof, writing something in a weather-beaten leather journal. A pip-boy with a cracked display sat beside her on the roof of the truck, she occasionally fiddled with it, flipping through its maps and data tabs to reference...whatever it was she was doing. Nika had been meaning to ask about it, been meaning to ask a lot of things really, like where she got it or why she didn’t wear it, since she took it out of the duffle bag she was using for a backrest but just hadn’t found the courage to do so. 

She didn’t exactly expect to find out her temporary guardian angel was some psychotic murderer but she also didn’t know what she expected from the stranger. 

Pushing the thought from her mind, she returned to her rather ghoulish task of picking through the belongings of the dead men and women scattered around the street. It had been her impromptu mentor’s suggestion, she had resisted at first, of course. There was the dignity of the dead to consider and just the grossness of it. All it took to really convince her though was having it pointed out that she was currently in little more than a jumpsuit with a glorified wristwatch and without so much as a backpack to her name or a holster to her pistol. Scavenging was going to be the only thing that was gonna keep her alive for the time being. 

“We-” Nika started but hesitated. Riley cast her a curious glance over her journal, with her aviators resting on top of her head the heavy eye shadow around her amber eyes could be seen. It amazed her how the bags were visible under that much charcoal. “We should bury them.” She continued, cringing slightly as the body she was lifting up slipped out of her hands and smacked against the concrete.

Riley only snorted. “They forfeited the right to an honest grave when they decided they’d rather kill than work the land.” She returned to her notes. Nika wanted so badly to ask her what it was she was doing.

“Does this land look workable to you?” Nika asked as she pulled a set of leather pouches off one of the less eviscerated corpses. They hooked to the belt around her waist surprisingly easily, she tried to avoid looking at the bloodstains.

She was answered by a long sigh as Riley closed her journal to give her her full attention. One of her eyes became hidden by the unbraided part of her hair. “Look, I know your perspective’s pretty warped what with just coming out of one of those pre-war paradises and all, but things aren’t that trashed. I’ve seen at least 3 farmsteads in the last two weeks, one of em even looked pretty sizeable. There’s no excuse to turn to raping and pillaging.” As if to say _that’s just the truth of it,_ she reopened her journal and went back to writing. 

“It wasn’t a paradise.” Was all Nika could muster before returning to her work. If Riley had heard her she didn’t comment on it. Truthfully, there was a part of Nika that just refused to accept the idea someone could just become that monstrous for no good reason. There had to be a why too it, she wanted to understand. 

She picked up another one of the pipe guns and removed the magazine from it before chucking the weapon away. Quickly, she unloaded the few .38 caliber rounds before discarding it too. The handful of them fell easily into the bag of ammo she’d been given along with the rifle, it was fortunate it was such a common bullet around here. They weren’t as powerful sure, but now she had a weapon that could use two different types of ammo, this was an asset if her surroundings told her anything.

“So-” Nika started again. She was met with another sigh, she bristled at it. “Got any thoughts on that one lady?” She asked with a little more annoyance than she intended. 

“The seeress chem fiend or the one with a stick up her ass?” Riley asked without looking up again. 

“Seeress? I mean the fortune teller. What’d you think of what she said, just feels too convenient to be anything but crazy rambling, right?” Nika asked. She was still searching for a decent bag of some kind that wasn’t torn apart by bullets or claws. 

Riley hummed. It wasn’t dismissive, more contemplative this time. “Can’t really say anything about its convenience, you’ve been pretty cagey about what it is you’re actually doing out here. Which I can appreciate.” She went quiet again. Now she was staring off over the roof of the building at the end of the street, searching for something. 

“I’ve met a few people like her, ones who can give you fortunes. None of them needed drugs for it but, well, none of them were exactly alike either.” She hesitated again, the way her eyes flicked about on the horizon. Unfocused, twitching. She had found something, something buried deep. A shake of her head, a clench of the eyes, and she was back to her journal. “In any case, they never steered me wrong.” 

Nika fought the urge to ask what just happened to her. “So you’re saying I should do it? That I should go to Diamond City?” Her foot hit something soft, she looked down to find a satchel that looked relatively unmaimed halfway off the shoulder of a woman whose head had been blown apart. It wasn’t a backpack but it was better than nothing.

Riley grunted, picking up her pipboy to check something again. “Couldn’t hurt. Biggest settlement in the region seems like the best place to start if you’re trying to find something anyway.”

Another silence fell between them as Nika dumped the contents of the bag out onto the ground. Mostly junk, empty tin cans and assorted other items of no discernable value. A crumpled up jacket plopped on top of the trash pile, a bit big for her sure but perfect for the cold coming night.

“You gonna take up Nice Hat’s offer to join ‘em?” Riley asked suddenly. Nika was taken aback, jerking her head away from the jacket she was appraising. 

“I- Well-” She sputtered. “Nice Hat? You mean Preston?” 

“No one else had a hat,” Riley answered. The sound of her pencil against the paper had grown harsher, the movements of her hand looking more like slashing and stabbing than true writing. Her face didn’t say it, but she’d found something alright, and she wasn’t happy about it. 

“Yeah but... _Nice Hat_?” Nika continued, slipping her arms through the coat’s sleeves and throwing the bag over her shoulder. She was hopeful this was some gambit for Doc to take her mind off whatever was eating at her. 

“It was a nice fucking hat.” Riley answered, her irritation not quite masked by the hoarseness of her voice. “I _had_ half a mind to ask for it as payment instead of having them help you but that would have been impolite. Now stop dodging the question and answer me.” She was staring at her now, eyes darkened and half concealed by the unrestrained half of her hair.

Nika chafed under her gaze. “W-well I-” She faltered, trying to find the right words. There were a lot of memories behind her answer, more still where Preston had taken his disciples. She wasn’t ready to unpack them, not to a near-stranger anyway. She forced them back down, steadied herself. “I dunno. Maybe. I’m not ready to start backtracking yet.” 

Riley gave an understanding hum, the tension etched across her face relaxing. She turned the page and went back to her work, calmer now. 

10 minutes passed as Nika searched through a few more bodies. Looking at the street around her, she was reasonably certain that, save the ones that had been reduced to gore, she had searched everybody. Honestly, she felt an odd sense of pride in herself. It had felt gross and horribly unhygienic but she had to admit, she was actually prepared for the road now. She had two bags to carry her supplies, pouches for her ammo, a jacket, and an entire rifle to defend against the apparently omnipresent raider infestation. She turned to walk back to her truck-mounted acquaintance when her foot thumped against something metal, sending it skidding a few feet across the pavement before stopping against the thigh of a dead raider. 

Reaching down, she found a cut-down rifle. It was a bolt action of a caliber she didn’t recognize from the rest of the bodies with a poorly sawed-off stock and a haphazard tape wrap around the grip. Even the barrel had been chopped short. It wasn’t good looking but it was remarkably compact, only about as long as her forearm. She picked it up and carried it over to the truck. “Any thoughts on this?”

Riley spared a half glance towards it before doing a double-take and quickly setting her journal and pencil aside. She snatched it out of her hands and set to work inspecting it, going quiet as she did so. 

“Something good?” Nika asked, mildly amused by her apparent fascination.

“No, not even remotely,” Riley muttered, pulling back the bolt to inspect the chamber and ammo. Whatever she saw elicited an unsurprised hmm from somewhere in her abused throat. “Just confused why anyone would do this. It’s .308, good caliber for ruining someone’s day and probably the one that took out the armors pauldron earlier. It used to be a hunting rifle before it was chopped up. Oddly professional work, front sight was moved to the new end of the barrel instead of just going without. Whoever did this even recrowned it, see?” She brought it up close to Nikas’ face, not bothering to explain what she should be looking at. 

“Well, whoever did the stock certainly didn’t do the barrel right?” Nika laughed, using what she could actually understand. Riley just hummed again, her interest waning as she slid the bolt back closed. “Think it could be salvaged?”

Riley snorted. “Gods no. Need a completely new barrel and stock for that and there wouldn’t be much point to it, rifles like this are a dime a dozen. They’re practically the bread and butter of the militia back in Vegas.” She handed it back to her, ignoring Nikas narrowed eyes. “I’d say keep it, for now, could make an ok back up weapon until you find an unmaimed one.” 

Nika took it and plopped it into her satchel, eyeing Riley suspiciously. Vegas was far, too far away. She’d let her guard down, said more than she probably intended without realizing. She ventured to break the taboo question. “So where did you get that pipboy anyway? Vegas? From a vault? Same place you got the Power Armor training? Or-”

Riley interrupted her thought by snapping her journal shut and tossing it and the pipboy into the duffle bag before zipping it closed. Both her Brush Gun and Bag were over her shoulder before she even hit the ground. “Come on. Help me find something flammable.”

“What? Why?” The woman was already halfway to the museum before she answered her. 

“You wanted to give ‘em their last rights, yeah? Cremations better than nothing.” 

Time passed. Bodies piled high. A combination of liquor bottles long forgotten and almost dry cans of world endingly precious gasoline were gathered and poured over the arrangement. The sun limped low in the distance, peeking over the horizon to steal one last look as Riley lowered an engraved lighter she refused to acknowledge as her own to a trail of gas leading from the pile of corpses. Satisfied with the showing, the last rays of true sunlight receded from the remains of a city once historic. Leaving it to be consumed by fire and twilight alike. Riley muttered something, a prayer maybe, asking that _“Skoll”_ would not catch the sun tonight. 

Nika didn’t bother to ask if she truly believed what she was saying, figured she wouldn’t get an answer. She found herself mesmerized as the flames lapping tongues twisted into clawed fingers. Tracked them as they stabbed into the cold, clammy meat of former people and scrambled across them too their once and former comrades. “Funny,” She mumbled. “Ended the world over who’d get the last rights to this stuff, now we’re burning it for the scum of the earth.” 

Riley grunted an acknowledgment. Too preoccupied with retrieving another Mentat from her affects, her third in the scarce few hours they’d known each other, to give her much else. “Should find shelter 'fore the night, no good can come of stumbling in the dark after a day like this.”

A raider, a boy of 17 or so’s, hair was being grasped by the fires blind scramble across it’s offering. It caught quickly, allowing it’s unseeing molester to brush it away and set to work melting the scalp underneath. Nika only nodded weakly as she watched the skin begin to blacken, bubble, sizzle, and pop. 

She was surprised she hadn’t vomited yet. Maybe the smell hadn’t fully hit her. Maybe her mind had started compartmentalizing already. Maybe the desperation and atrocities of the last days of the Old World had made her numb to carnage. Or maybe she was just too damn tired to process it. 

All she knew was she couldn’t take her eyes off that fucking pyre of flesh and wasted potential. 

“I think you can take it from here.” Riley yawned. Turning away from her and walking up the street, towards the skewered museum. “I’d stick around to help but my employer would kill me if he found out I was getting tied up in things that aren’t expressly necessary to my job. You know how it is.” 

This managed to snap Nika from her stupor. She looked to her departing guide with rising panic as her throat fell into her gut. A feeling accompanied by a sense of shame as she reached her hand out to her, mouth parting for words she didn’t have. What would she say? What _could_ she say? This woman, this total stranger, had already done more for her in a few hours than most people she’d known had over the course of years. Expecting her to stay was just greed. 

Apparently sensing her trepidation, Riley stopped and pivoted on her heel to face her. A tired but genuine smile crossed her lips, crooked teeth glinting in the firelight, an attempt to be reassuring. “I got a feeling our paths’ll cross again! So you keep yourself alive so I can hear all about yours, okay?”

Nika laughed. “Alright, I’m gonna hold you to that!” She raised her outstretched hand into a slow wave as Riley turned away again and disappeared into the dark. She held there a few minutes longer, watched the firelight dance through the shadows around her feet. It was when the smell finally started to get to her that she turned to leave, back the way she came.

On the surface it seemed counterintuitive, going back the way she’d come. A retreat from everything she’d done today. In actual fact, her reasoning was quite simple: she wanted to sleep somewhere safe that didn’t smell like burning death _damn it_. The only place she knew for sure was safe, knew wasn’t crawling with murderous critters or psychotic raider gangs, was Sanctuary Hills. 

It was about halfway between Concord and the Red Rocket gas station when she sensed something, a change in the air. She stole a look over her shoulder. Just at the edge of Concord, where Riley’d likely be by now, there was a bright blue flash of light. As silent as it was blinding and reaching up over the tops of the three-story buildings and towards the darkened heavens. It was gone just as quickly as it had come. 

Nika dismissed it as over-exhaustion before turning back toward the truck stop. 

She passed the unfortunately named refueling stop chain just as she had on her way to Concord and continued the 20 minutes or so too Sanctuary Hills. Her feet stilled at the bridge over the river. Her heart began racing, her legs turned to lead, and her eyes burned as she stared across the wooden wreck to her former home. Dead voices danced on the wind over the river. Ghosts of friends wandered through the darkened wreckage of houses. A man in a freshly pressed T-Shirt and slacks holding a baby swaddled in a blanket approached her from the street. Tears were running down her face now as silent as the old dead. She forced a hard blink and tried to will them away, shook her head and rubbed at her eyes. 

When she opened them she foud Preston, cradling his rifle in the nook of his arm, was about to step up to the bridge. 

“Hey! Wasn’t sure if you’d- hey wait!” He didn’t get to finish his thought. Nika was running, from him, from the past, from an uncertain future. The lead-in her legs had evaporated as she bolted down the road. Tears kept falling unbidden, heedless of all her mental flagellation. The world became a blur of asphalt, sobs, and overgrown wilderness. Her mind stopped truly processing anything as she went on autopilot, searching for somewhere to simply collapse away from any other person.

She didn’t know how or when she got there but when she came too she was in the back office of the Red Rocket. Her back was pressed against a moldy cot by the computer desk, a dog she didn’t know was curled up next to her. His head, she didn’t know how she knew he was a he but she did, was in her lap wide awake. It spared a glance up to her before looking back to the door. She followed its gaze to find a large heavy metal shelf had been shoved in front of the door, the obvious square shape of grime and rot on the wall beside her telling her where it had come from. Breathing could be heard through the barricade, quick, ragged, and in multiples occasionally punctuated by skittering feet. She didn’t know what was out there but considering the chopped down .308 was in her hands she couldn’t imagine it was anything polite. 

The clock on her pipboy told her it was almost three in the morning, too early to try and fight anything or travel. The tears had dried and her skin felt the same where they had run, she was sure that little episode had done her make up no favors. She didn’t care. 

She nudged the dog as she dragged herself to her feet. It watched her expectantly as she flopped onto the nasty mattress, the springs letting out a chorus of bouncing squeals. The dog, she was never good with animal names, cocked its head in confusion and let out a whine. It looked back to the door, concern etched into its doofy face. 

“Don’t worry about it, come on.” Nika mumbled, laying on her arm and pressing herself up against the back wall and leave half the bed available. She patted the open space expectantly. “Come on, let’s get some real sleep.” 

The dog looked back to her and stared for a long moment. It tilted its head back and forth a few times, considering the bed and her. With a tired huff, he leaped from his spot and up to the bed in a single bound. Gracelessly, he slammed into her and scrambled to get his hind legs up onto the mattress. She laughed too loud as he fussed over where to lay down before finally coming to a stop with a mighty flop. The springs of the bed protested throughout the process, the dog simply gave them another huff as it lay its head on its paws. 

Still smiling, Nika placed a hand on the dogs back. When he made no obvious signs of annoyance she laid her head next to his and closed her eyes. For his part, he dozed off quickly. Falling into a steady and soothing rhythm in and out. She listened to him, felt his hot breath against the cot, blocked out the sounds of the unknown animals outside and finally, finally fell asleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: The exact symbols used for the section breaks indicate whose perspectives that part is written from!  
> Riley = ᛐᛤᛚ  
> Nika = -~-
> 
> Credit as usual to my wonderful betas Nuke and Mu without whom these fics would be completely incoherent and unreadable trash fires.


End file.
